Summary

This article investigates the artistic and social context in which single-point perspective was first employed in painting in Florence during the early fifteenth century. Rather than being seen as a universal system perfected by Brunelleschi, recorded by Alberti, and implemented by artists such as Uccello and Masaccio, perspective may have developed out of an architectural practice, whose inherent representational limitations, while downplayed by theorists, had to be addressed by visual artists. The social context of the earliest patrons who commissioned works with prominent displays of perspective has rarely been discussed. It is here proposed that upwardly mobile members of the Guelf party, particularly in and around the Santa Maria Novella quarter of Florence, were conspicuous among this group. Aspiring to consolidate their status in the social élite of Florence, they commissioned works in the relatively inexpensive medium of painting that emulated the prestigious and costly all’antica architectural and sculptural monuments commissioned by the Guelf party itself, using perspective to create the illusion of elaborate architectural settings.

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